Endoscopic operating techniques have become widely used in a large number of surgical procedures. In these procedures, an endoscopic instrument set, which in particular can comprise an endoscope and one or more endoscopic instruments, is guided through a natural opening of the body, or through an artificial opening created with the aid of an incision, to an operating site located inside the body. For this purpose, endoscopic instruments have an elongate shaft with, at the distal end thereof, i.e. the end remote from the user, a tool for performing surgical manipulations, which tool can be actuated from a handle arranged at the proximal end of the shaft, i.e. the end near the user, and via and elongate transmission element arranged in the shaft. In an endoscopic procedure, the handle remains outside the body opening, while the shaft with the tool is introduced through the body opening. The necessary usable length of the shaft, for guiding the tool to the operating site via the access route created through the natural or artificial opening in the body, depends in particular on the nature of the surgical procedure and on the access route used, in particular on the length of the access route between the natural or artificially created opening in the body and the operating site. Moreover, the nature of the procedure and the access route used for the latter will dictate whether a rigid, a semi-flexible or a flexible endoscopic instrument set is used.
In laparoscopic operations, but also in other endoscopic procedures, it is rigid endoscopic instruments that are mainly used. In these, the elongate shaft is substantially rigid or only slightly flexible. While a useful maximum length of ca. 500 mm is generally sufficient for laparoscopic procedures, it may in some cases be necessary to provide a sometimes substantially greater usable length, for example in the case of obese patients.
Rigid endoscopic instruments are often provided for multiple use. Therefore, after a procedure has been completed, the used endoscopic instrument has to be cleaned and sterilized before being used again. For this purpose, it is known for endoscopic instruments to be designed such that they can be dismantled, in which case in particular the handle can be separated from the shaft. Moreover, a shaft insert, which comprises the tool and the transmission element, can be designed to be removable from an outer shaft of the shaft. The handle, the outer shaft and the insert can then be cleaned in a manner known per se in a surgical washing machine and sterilized in an autoclave. Since the available space in such cleaning and sterilizing apparatuses is limited, instruments with an excess useful length, particularly with a length of more than 500 mm, cannot be cleaned and sterilized in this way, or they can be cleaned and sterilized in this way only with considerable effort, for example with manual cleaning and sterilization in a specially adapted autoclave.